Moonflower's Destiny
by roseheartbookie
Summary: When she was born, Starclan saw a vision. They read a great prophecy of the fire who will light the darkness and a noble warrior not clanborn. Moon and her littermates Green and Stripe are kits of the forest, closer than leaves sharing a branch. But her fate has been decided by spirits far from the world she knows. That is, until the clan life becomes her only hope for survival.


Chapter 1

Moon was shoved out of the warm den by her sister, Green and tumbled into cold fluffy snow. She blinked open her eyes and squinted at the moon. Green just woke her up from a wonderful dream about hunting a rabbit. Too bad she was still a kit. Green, their brother Stripe, had all opened their eyes last moon. "Be careful!" she heard her mother Amber call. _I am so going to get you_ , Moon thought as she sniffed around, catching her littermate's scent behind a clump of bracken.

"Eeekk!" she yowled, shaking her gray striped fur and throwing herself into Green. Moon had her sister pinned down, Green's fur ruffled from the brief tussle.

"Oh no you don't!" her green eyes sparkled as she twisted away from Moon's grip, sending up clumps of snow as she tried to hare away.

Moon dashed after her, her tracks in the snow slightly bigger than her sister's. She could see Green's tracks and smell her scent. Moon followed her sister through a bramble thicket, under a dead tree root, and back into the den, their den, with the bramble on the top. She stopped to look at the den, tilting her head back to see the top where a solitary black thorn was pointed up. Amber said she built the den with moss, thorns, and branches and cobwebs. Scampering to the back, Moon could see the half-back, where a well-placed boulder made up most of it. The familiar sight comforted her. She turned back and stopped at the entrance. _Why does she have to ruin every game by running back into the den?_ Moon grumbled to herself as she groomed her neck fur, shook out her pelt, and padded back in.

The last thing Moon expected was Stripe to run into her.

"Hi Moon," he said, his pale tabby flank and black tipped tail passing her as he ran outside and tried to catch a particularly large snowflake with his mouth.

It landed on his nose instead and melted. She stifled a laugh as he licked the wet spot off and was surprised by the coldness. They were knee-deep in snow, and he couldn't guess it was cold? Moon was glad to be the oldest cat in the litter. Stripe was the youngest, and Green was the second-born. She ran off in the direction Stripe had gone, willing him not to wander too far. _He's always looking for trouble,_ Moon thought as she remembered what had happened several days ago. Stripe had been bitten by a fire ant while wandering the forest when Amber, Moon, and Green were sleeping. Moon caught the barest hint of his scent on a tree root and followed it. It was a straight path, taken slowly but gradually getting faster.

Moon caught up with Stripe at the bottom of a beech tree. He wasn't moving, watching a whiskered nose pop out of a hole in the ground. It was a mouse. They exchanged glances. Stripe twitched his ears twice, a symbol they made up to mean "let your claws out." Stripe pointed with his tail to Moon, gesturing that she should try catching it. Was he mad? Moon had no knowledge of hunting, but she could try. Moon lightly stalked closer, and the mouse did not react. The wind was blowing the scent of the mouse toward her, meaning the mouse couldn't smell her, right? She didn't know a thing. It was as foreign to her as the den when she first opened her eyes. _Tail down_ , she thought as her wiggling tail straightened, hanging just above the snow. She hesitated over the mouse, and then struck like a hawk. A moment later, the mouse was impaled on her claws, its tiny chest still moving.

"What should I do with it?" she asked Stripe, holding her paw up. Stripe thought for a bit, and said,

"Try biting it." Moon nodded and sank her teeth into the neck.

The mouse stopped breathing and went limp. She turned to Stripe and smiled. He smiled back.

"Your first prey-catch!" He congratulated her, licking her ears.

"Come on, let's bring it back." They turned around, following their tracks that the snow had all but covered.

The mouse was dangling by its tail in Moon's mouth as Stripe and she struggled through wind and undergrowth, and the heavy snow wasn't making it any easier. Moon filled with pride as she wondered what Green and their mom, Amber, would say. She led her brother around a large bush of dark leaves and into a clearing. They shook out their fur and ran into the den at the edge of that clearing.

Her last thought was a question about what her mom would think before they entered the den. Amber was stretching in one corner, and Green was chasing around a moss-ball on the other. They turned to the entrance and their eyes widened.

"Did you catch that?" Green asked.

"Mmmmmph!" Moon struggled to talk through the mouse-tail.

"All by herself!" Stripe replied. Moon laid the mouse down on the den floor and told them the story.

"Stripe ran off, and I went after him. We saw the mouse, and he looked like he thought I should try catching it, so I did. I stalked closer, waited, and pounced with all four paws. After that, the mouse actually got caught on my paw!" Laughter and smiles greeted this. "It was still alive, so Stripe suggested I bite it. I bit the neck and it went limp." At the end of her story, she was surrounded with questions and remarks from her sister and mother.

Although Moon felt proud, she also felt awkward as they showered her with praise.

"It's as big as you!" Amber joked, as she bit into the mouse.

"Can we try?" Stripe mewled, as he put his head on his forepaws and made his eyes go big. Since he was the youngest of the litter, everyone gave in to most of his demands when he made that innocent little face. Amber smiled, her claws tearing apart mouse meat into smaller pieces.

"Eat up, little kits!" Moon snagged a piece with her claw before Stripe and Green barreled into the shreds of mouse. She giggled when they grabbed the same piece by accident and ripped it into two smaller pieces. Moon opened her mouth wide, showing thorn-sharp teeth as they sank into the piece of mouse. She tore the piece she bit into off. It was savory and filled with scents of the forest, and the flavor seemed to sparkle like the sunlight on snow. Her face was one of awe and satisfaction, and similar expressions were on Stripe's and Green's faces. Moon felt like a piece that she never knew was missing was filled by that one venture out. A part of her wanted badly to learn how to stalk, hunt, and kill prey a better way, like in her dream. She had fed her family and herself, and it felt like she was useful.

"Can you teach me?" It was Green's meow, gently prodding Moon with her paw.

"Of course!"

"Don't stray, little ones!" Amber was watching them. "Remember, you're never too young to learn!"

Moon, Green and Stripe bounded across the den floor and through the leaf-web flap in the front. They were almost blown over by a sudden wind gust. Moon righted Stripe, who had been thrown into the snow and continued on. The blizzard-like snow was blinding, and they had to tread carefully and slowly. Moon nearly rammed into a tree, as she could barely see her own paws, but she was still determined to teach her littermates the art of hunting mice. Moon shivered as a snowflake hit her nose. The wind sounded like a screeching hawk.

"I'm scared," Green mewed, "Can we go home?"

"Please stay," Moon replied, "We need you here."

Moon and Green trudged on, pressing together to conserve warmth. She recognized an oak tree through the snow and nudged her littermate toward it. As they got closer, Moon realized it wasn't the tree she thought it was at all. Moon tripped over a broken tree branch on the ground and turned back. She couldn't see anything but the clouds in the sky and the falling snow. They were lost. She turned to Stripe, remembering how he had a knack for direction. Stripe wasn't there. Rapid feelings started churning out of her. Shock, fright, desperation. And under that, the wish that she was in a dream. That they were suckling Amber's belly and fell asleep. But she knew she wasn't.

"Green! Where's Stripe?!" Her alarmed meow barely made it out of her mouth when it was snatched by the wind and blown away.

"What?" Green squinted through the falling flakes. "I can't hear you!"

"I said, WHERE'S STRIPE?!" Moon raised her muzzle to Green's ear so she had to hear, even if she didn't want to.

Green turned her head, her expression rapidly turning frightened and anxious.

"I don't know!" Green yelled out the words, the wind making it hard to hear. _Could they make it back to the den? No._ She looked to the sky, realizing the snow had started to fall more quickly. To make matters worse, it was getting dark. They couldn't. What could they do? Suddenly, Moon almost fell headfirst into a bramble thicket. Green pulled her back with her teeth, and Moon gave a small yelp. She suddenly had an idea. Her eyes moved along the brambles.

"Green!" Moon yowled.

"What?" Green replied.

"Let's go in there!" Moon used her tail to point at the thicket.

Moon and Green cautiously entered the bramble thicket, weaving past thorns and branches to a hollow part. It was dark, but warmer than the outside. Moon began grooming her pelt while Green started pulling leaves and moss caught in the branches to make a nest. Moon walked several tail-lengths from her littermate and sniffed the air. There was a strange scent, though faint, that made her instinctively want to find another place to stay. _Another cat?_ She decided to put it in the back of her mind. But over that was a damp, musty, smell, probably from the leaves. Then she heard a scuffling sound mixed with prey-scent. It was a mouse. Moon stepped lightly and carefully toward it, pinpointing it by hearing. As she was about to take the final step, the mouse ran away. _Mouse brain! Why did it run away?_ Moon cursed at herself until she heard a step, pounce, and a happy purr from Green, and turned to find the mouse in her jaws.

"Was this yours?" she teased, dropping the kill on the ground.

"Yes," Moon replied, "And you stole it!"

The two kits collapsed on the ground in a play-fight, mewling and wriggling, kicking up dust. Moon was on her back, two paws over her shoulders. Green had won.

"What are you doing here?" a voice sounded from the darkness.


End file.
